silencio administrativo / administrative silence/ Obra Mayor

My architect has provided plans ,& payed taxes for reform of a townhouse to the town hall mid 08-2009 ,since the local town hall does not have a planning department these plans where send to another planning department dealing with my area ,we received an official positive advice 26-10-2009 from this planning department to the town hall of our village .So the plans of the architect are approved by this planning department .

i have copies of all docs,application for lisence etc stamped as "'received "' by the local town hall ,so they have all at hand to give me the lisence you would say ,still up till today no lisence ...

reason apperently is .... ,they have not enough work to have a session with the whole council at my local town hall to discuss & approve the final formal lisence ,and no telling when they will actual have

So i am waiting and waiting ,my architect says just start because of the ""silencio administrativo"" but i am very reluctant to do so ,i want to have that actual paper in my hands .

as things stand right now, with people being affected by planning permissions found illegal after the building is finished, it is advisable to wait. Please note that the requests of additional documens interrupt the deadlines of the so called silencio administrativo, therefore you have to be cautious: a request for payment of a fee could paralize the process, so that the deadline would not have expired.

However, in the event you wanted to take the risk, you should file an application at the town hall, explaining that you had submitted the original application on date X, that the time to issue a final decision has already expired, that you have received no reply, so that you estimate that your application has been approved, and therefore you are going to begin the building works on the ******. Do not try to start building without making sure that you have already sent a notice in advance.

The above is valid, provided that you are building in an area classified as urban land. In rural land, the above would not be applicable.